Lost in Suburbia: A stinky time in the suburbs

Wednesday

Oct 25, 2017 at 8:59 AMOct 25, 2017 at 8:59 AM

Tracy Beckerman More Content Now

In the time that we’ve lived in the ’burbs, we’ve had a veritable parade of icky insecty-things cavorting through our home. There were the things with a million legs that crawled up our bathtubs, the infestation of little black ants that marched through our kitchen, the termites that lunched on our wood deck, the Japanese beetles that stopped to smell my roses and then ate them, and a recent cave cricket reunion we hosted in our basement.

None of these, however, were nearly as delightful as our new guests: Stink bugs. The first time I saw one, I had no idea what it was. Whatever they were, they were all over the house and unlike most other bugs, these seemed to be in no hurry to go anywhere. They just meandered around the house like they owned the place. Since they weren’t contributing to the mortgage, my feeling was, they had no right to be there.

Not sure what I was dealing with, I took a picture and emailed it to the pest control people.

“Looks like a stink bug,” said the pest guy.

“That’s a weird name,” I said. “Why are they called that?”

“Cuz they stink,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“When they get scared they let out this stuff that stinks.”

“Oh, like a skunk?” I wondered.

“Yeah, but worse,” he commented.

“How could it be worse? It’s a little bug.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Don’t scare them and don’t squash them. They stink if you squash them, too.”

I was beside myself. The pest people said they really didn’t have anything that would get rid of the stink bugs without killing off my family and half of the state, too. I would have to tiptoe around my house to make sure I didn’t sneak up on any stink bugs and scare them or step on them.

The problem is, I’m a bug squealer. When I see a bug, I squeal. I can’t help it. I come from a long line of bug squealers. It’s in my genes. The kids think it’s a riot. Whenever they hear me shriek, they announce, “There’s mom’s bug yell. She must have seen a bug.”

So clearly if I saw a stink bug, and I shrieked, it would scare the bug and he would stink. It was a stinky situation.

Fortunately, after a while. I got used to seeing them around the house and I was able to curb my impulse to shriek. But I couldn’t help being nervous that I would accidentally step on one or I would inadvertently do something to scare it and then my whole house would reek. I lived in perpetual fear of setting off the stink bug.Of course, I had never actually smelled the stink bug and after a month of tiptoeing around them, curiosity finally got the best of me. One day when I spotted one strolling across the hallway, I scooped it up with a paper towel and took it outside. Then I pinched my nose and squashed it.

It smelled … like … nothing.

I unpinched my nose and inhaled. More nothing. Either I got a defective stink bug, or it wasn’t a stink bug after all.

“We have been living in fear for nothing,” I told my husband. “The stink bug is an imposter. It’s just some stupid beetle.”

He laughed.

“Well, that stinks.”

— For more Lost in Suburbia, follow Tracy on Facebook at facebook.com/LostinSuburbiaFanPage or on Twitter at @TracyBeckerman.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.